Old Forest
The Taur Iaur was a dense woodland lying between the Tyrn Gorthad and the Shire.The Old Forest was a fragment of the vast woodland which had once covered most of Middle-earth. The hearts of many of the forest's trees were black and spiteful towards Men and Hobbits. Some even said that the trees attacked intruders in the forest. Whatever the truth of these stories, many venturing into the Taur laur were never seen again. While this tainted, malevolent woodlandwais not truely representative of the forests of the Elder Days, the intense sense of "awareness" and magical prescence the traveler feelt there mirrored the nature of ancient tree-communities. In the mid-Second Age, Numenorean sorcerers had contrived to force the Animated Trees of the Eriadoran forests, into a few selected pockets, to eliminate the continuing danger they had presented both to local farmers and herdsmen and to the imperial ambitions of the Numenorean colonists. The Taur Iaur—well to the north of most settlements of Men in Cardolan, and because of that already a haven for Faerie beings fleeing civilization—was one of the two repositories of this campaign. Its success, after decades of effort, left the Old Forest a fell place, filled with pockets of bitterness and hatred for all mortal flesh. Wherever Men or Hobbits settled too near the forest, its trees sensed the incursion and concentrated their hostility in nearby groves. This phenomenon was marked at Buckland, on the eastern border of the Shire. Where the trees were less alert, Men may, if careful and minimally intrusive, entered the forest fringes to hunt, collect firewood, and gather nuts and fruit in the their seasons. Faerie creatures were always present, however, and the Taur Iaur could never be said to be truely safe. In the last years of the kingdom of Arthedain,the Old Forest became a constant source of grief for the folk along the Brandywine.The continuing presence of "Old Tom"— that was, Tom Bombadil—kept the Witch-king from using the haunted wood as a base for his armies, but Bombadil lacked the means or the inclination to truly cleanse the wood of its hatred for the Free Peoples.Every few years, small and subtle horrors crept across the river into the Shire, and only frequent ax-raids and burnings kept the curse of the forest from troubling the Great Road and the settlements along the river. After the fall of Arthedain and Angmar, problems with the Old Forest became the continuing concern of the Oldbucks, Sarrabucks, and Cutwillows, the strongest of the local clans. Aggressive, outflowing evil virtually came to an end without the anchor of magical influence from Carn Dum, but the Men and Hobbits who walked the edges of the forest remained a source of contagion The founding of Buckland diminished the problem; the Oldbucks and their allies destroyed the Old Forest's most dangerous inhabitants in the course of their colonizing efforts.Old Man Willow and many lesser evils still remained, however.As Frodo Baggins learned, even an aging and weakened Old Forest could still be a threat to Hobbit travelers. Regions Angerwood Bonfire Glade Creaking Vale Darkpaw Vale Deep Gulley Deepest Hollow Dire Glade East Forest Road Elvet Isle Forest Maze Living Forest Old Barrows Road Old Man Willow's Vale Ruddyoaks Grove Shifting Wood Strangewoods Willow Glade Windle-reach Places of Note: *Abandoned Cottage *ancient Well *Bald Hill *Black Alder's Hill *Bombadil's House *Breredon *deepest hollow *Forest Grave *Forest Grave Ruin *Forlorn Glade *Goldberry's Spring *Grindwall *Haysend *Misleading Path *Old Forest Barrow *Old Forest Gate *Old Forest Hold *Old Forest Ruins *Old Muddyfoots Hill *Old Oak's Grave *Red oak tree *secret house *The Secret Passage *Shadepool *The Broken Heart *The Tall Trees *thorny garden *Tomnoddy Corner *Wall of Trees *Weaver's Den *Weeping Waters *Waterfalls and Withywindle Cave *willow-dingle *Withy-weir *Withywindle Crossing *woodcave Characters Ainur: Black Alder Goldberry Grasping Root Long Trailer Mother Withywindle Old man willow Ruddyoak Tom Bombadil Wildthorn Men: Durond Orcs: Dorglas Druleg Other: Eitor-kalsak Places *Blackwood Hill *Bombadil's House *Bonfire Glade *Old Forest Ruin *Old man willow *the Willow Dingle *Withy Windle's Cave References *MERP:the Shire *MERP:Arnor *MERP:Bree and the Barrow-Downs Category:Cardolan Category:Breeland Category:Shire Category:Forest